Category: Photography

EightBanners Pinhole Cameras

8 banners pinhole cameras One thing I greatly enjoy about doing this site is that fact that I run across so many cool things on the web. Some are practical others are neat too look at and some are just down right awesome. This would be one of the awesome finds. Coming out of China amidst copyright problems with a US based pinhole camera company, the EightBanners camera company has surpassed themselves in the area of beautiful and original pinhole cameras. The latest designs feature very professional looking aluminium body pinhole cameras that make pin sharp images on 120 format film. If a metal camera isn’t your cup of tea then I suppose you could buy one of their wooden cameras. Still the same high quality construction and a beautiful eye for detail. And the features of these are stunning. Soon you will be able to equip your camera body with a turret of pinhole types. Single pinholes, slits, crosses, zone plate… Wow! Best of all it looks like they will sell individual parts  as well. Building a nice wooden camera body but you don’t want to make a shutter? No problem, you can get one here. Go have a look at their catalog and the online gallery of shots taken with these cameras.

EightBanners Pinhole Cameras

See what you can do with one of our security video cameras. Whether you need an inexpensive surveillance camera or top-of-the-line security video cameras, we can meet your security needs.

Tiny Camcorder Just For Fun

Pure Digital PSV-352 60 Minute Point-and-Shoot Camcorder Kind of takes the fun out of hacking one from CVS but if your looking for a pocket sized camcorder that is easy to use this would be a good choice. The pre-hacked version has one big advantage over the one you can get for a song, ok two big advantages other than the price. The ‘real’ version hold three times more video due to the 1 GB of memory inside and it comes with a built in USB connector.
Now, speaking as a guy that owns two of the DIY versions I can safely say that it can be a pain in the ass to futz with a homemade cable when I want to unload the movies. It’s also an equal pain using the software that you can find on the ‘Net that ‘fixes‘ the cheap cameras.
You might wonder why I own two of these cameras, well it’s so I can take 3D video with them. It’s fun and I’ll blog my exploits here pretty soon. I’ve also taken one of these cameras to Hawaii with me and got fairly good results. The 20 minute time restrictions keeps the shots short and trust me that’s a good thing. I normally keep one of these cameras with me just in case I spot something cool, you can’t beat it for size. I’d say that the Pure Digital camcorder would make a dandy gift for anyone looking for a take it where ever you go camera.

Pure Digital PSV-352 60 Minute Point-and-Shoot Camcorder

CamPole – Just in Time For Christmas!

My brother sent me this today:

"So, how do you take a picture of a large family at a table and get all of them in the picture? Well, you could shoot a digital panoramic and have a long, wide image with everyone at the table, Or you could shoot from the corner and get everyone at a triangle shaped table with the people closest to the camera being washed out from the flash, or you could hover above the table where everyone is the same distance from the camera, and the table actually looks square, and nobody suffers from wide angle distortion. Difficult you say? Well not if you have the amazing, the astounding, Kitco CamPole! Yes, with the Kitco CamPole, you too can get those amazing shots from ABOVE the action! Now you too can share in a godlike perspective! Fully featured with remote air release, wireless video viewfinder, and fully automatic exposure. Buy your CamPole today! Only at authorized Kitco dealers!"

DSCN0296

Receiver and LCD television at base of pole.

DSCN0297

Camera head assembly. Head is at a 45 degree angle.

DSCN0298

Shutter release. The bulb release is screwed into a nut that is brazed onto a flat washer. Whole assembly held by gaffer’s tape to camera. Bulb release pushes the shutter release button on camera. (more pictures of that soon -John)

DSCN0299

Video camera/transmitter taped to viewfinder. The viewfinder frame is about %50 smaller than a normal 35mm camera viewfinder, so the video camera has no problem ‘seeing’ the whole frame.

DSCN0300

Video camera/transmitter setup again.

DSCN0301

Entire Assembly

DSC_4699

Christmas tree pic- top down view taken from floor level.

—– 

I’m looking forward to seeing more photos from this rig. Maybe if I prod him a bit he will add a tilt ajustment to it.

The Game Boy Camera Color Photography Project

Color pictures from a Game Boy camera Nothing like bending electronics to your will… Using three filters (red, green, blue) and three exposures from a standard (albet old) Nintendo Gameboy Camera a color image is born. I did the same thing years ago with a black and white Quickcam camera and three filters from a gel catalog pack. I’ll have to dig that up one day. Looks like develpoment has stalled on this project but it’s still a great read. Makes you think, don’t it?

The Game Boy Camera Color Photography Project

Autostitch Panorama Program

Autostitch Brooklyn bridgeI decided to give the UBC AutoStitch program a try today. I had taken over 70 images at very close range on the Brooklyn bridge on my last visit there with thought of making a panogram out of them but the distortions proved to be too great. I remembered reading about how there was a fully automatic panoramic program that worked wonders in cases like this. The image isn’t perfect but I’m quite pleased with the outcome. So if your looking for a free alternative to the pano maker in Photoshop or Panotools you should give this a try.